ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 307 



this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being lost, 

 and the bequest remained in an unsettled state for near twenty 

 years, till 1700 ; so that little or no advantage was derived from it. 

 About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the 

 failure of a borrower; but, by prudent management, has since been 

 raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. 

 The trustees are the vicar -and the renters or owners of Temple, 

 Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time 

 being. This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial 

 premises in a comfortable state ; and began by building a solid 

 stone wall round the front court, and another in the lower yard, 

 between that and the neighbouring garden ; but was interrupted 

 by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions. 



April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 



June, 1 68 1. This living was now in such low estimation in 

 Magdalen College that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert 

 White, M.A., who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of his 

 age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored 

 and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved 

 with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged the kitchen and 

 brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well ; he also built a large new 

 barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, 

 which he laid out in walks and borders ; and entirely planned the 

 back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of 

 it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the sum of forty pounds 

 to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the church; that 

 is, in strengthening and securing such parts as seem decaying and 

 dangerous." With this sum two large buttresses were erected to 

 support the east end of the south wall of the church, and the 

 gable- end wall of the west end of the south aisle was new built 

 irom the ground. 



By his will also he gave " one hundred pounds to be laid out 

 on lands ; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching 

 the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, and say 

 their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit; and be under 

 the direction of his executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, 

 under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall 



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